FALL TV PRE­VIEW

Net­works ready to roll out fall pre­mieres

The com­mer­cial broad­cast net­works are play­ing it safe, with re­vivals and re­boots and a host of fa­mil­iar faces, in­clud­ing Edie Falco, David Bore­anaz, Kyra Sedg­wick and She­mar Moore.

Will it work? You will de­cide.

As the fall TV sea­son un­of­fi­cially opens to­mor­row, here's what's com­ing to a screen near you: Make ’em laugh

“Will & Grace” (NBC, Sept. 28) re­unites the cast 11 years af­ter the show went off the air as if noth­ing has changed. NBC's pre­view amounted to high­light clips of the first eight sea­sons. Even so, the network has al­ready re­newed it for a sec­ond sea­son. Your love for nos­tal­gia may vary.

OK, who wanted the “Big Bang The­ory” pre­quel? In “Young Shel­don” (CBS, Sept. 25), it's 1989 and 9-year-old Shel­don (Iain Ar­mitage) starts high school and man­ages to of­fend ev­ery­one, from stu­dents to teach­ers alike, in record time. Won't any­one show a young geek some love?

You think your fam­ily is suf­fo­cat­ing you? In “9JKL” (CBS, Oct. 2), a downon-his-luck ac­tor (Mark Feuer­stein) ends up liv­ing in a Man­hat­tan build­ing with his par­ents (Linda Lavin, El­liot Gould) on one side and his brother on the other and the walls have ears. At least, it feels that way to our hero.

“Me, My­self & I” (CBS, Sept. 25) fol­lows one man at three points in his life — at 40 (played by Bobby Moyni­han, fresh from “Satur­day Night Live”) and 25 years ear­lier as a teen and 25 years later as a se­nior played by John Lar­ro­quette. Will three ver­sions equal even half a funny show?

No, it's not a dump­ing via so­cial me­dia. On “Ghosted” (Fox, Oct. 1), two lunkheads (Craig Robin­son, “The Of­fice,” and Adam Scott, “Parks and Recreation”) are re­cruited into investigating and pro­tect­ing mankind from aliens on Earth. Think of it as a com­edy cross­over be­tween “The X Files” and “Men in Black.”

Make ’em cry

En­joy some Rea­gan-era ex­cess with the re­boot of “Dy­nasty” (CW, Oct. 11). The se­ries up­dates the Car­ring­ton fam­ily by turn­ing Krys­tle into an am­bi­tious Latina busi­ness­woman named Cristal and turns Sammy Jo into a man. But the en­mity be­tween the new wife and grown daugh­ter Fal­lon will set off those trade­mark cat fights.

David Bore­anaz has been work­ing steadily in prime time for 20 years (in “Buffy the Vam­pire Slayer,” “An­gel” and then “Bones”) and he's not tak­ing any

breaks. He stars in “Seal Team” (CBS, Sept. 27), about a elite Navy Seal squad that chases ter­ror­ists around the world while try­ing to bal­ance some com­pli­cated per­sonal lives.

She­mar Moore head­lines “S.W.A.T.” (CBS, Nov. 2), a re­make of the cult '70s cop show. When his com­man­der ac­ci­den­tally shoots a boy, he's forced to as­sume com­mand — and finds out he's now an­swer­ing to his girl­friend.

If you're look­ing for he­roes of the su­per-kind, Mar­vel is all over the map — the network map. “The Gifted” (Fox, Oct. 2) is set in the “X-Men” uni­verse with sev­eral teens dis­cov­er­ing they have para­nor­mal gifts. Cult TV fa­vorites Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”) and Amy Acker (“An­gel”) star as par­ents who re­al­ize they must pro­tect their chil­dren from a world that would de­stroy them.

“Mar­vel’s the In­hu­mans” (ABC, Sept. 29) finds the royal fam­ily of a race of pow­er­ful crea­tures fac­ing a coup from within and forced to aban­don their home on the dark side of the moon. It stars An­son Mount (“Hell on Wheels” as Black Bolt, the king whose whis­per can shat­ter a moun­tain; Serinda Swan (“Grace­land”) as his wife Me­dusa, whose hair can snare a man; and a 2,000-pound dog named Lock­jaw, who can tele­port.

This seems sort of meta: “Ten Days in the Val­ley” (ABC, Oct. 1) finds the pro­ducer of a cop show (Kyra Sedg­wick, “The Closer”) in­volved in a crim­i­nal con­spir­acy when her daugh­ter is ab­ducted.

In “Kevin (Prob­a­bly) Saves the World” (ABC, Oct. 3), a sad sack (Ja­son Rit­ter, “Par­ent­hood”) forced to move back home one night en­coun­ters a me­teor and then gains a guardian only he can see who pushes him to do great things with a mix of en­cour­age­ment and slaps up­side the head.

From the cre­ator of “House” comes “The Good Doc­tor” (ABC, Sept. 25), about a bril­liant sur­geon (Fred­die High­more, “Bates Mo­tel”) with autism who joins a de­mand­ing new med­i­cal prac­tice.

Even Dick Wolf wants to get some of that sweet true-crime cash. The mas­ter­mind be­hind the “Law & Or­der” fran­chise brings us his latest in­stall­ment in “Law & Or­der True Crime: The Menendez Mur­ders” (NBC, Sept. 26) with Edie Falco (“The So­pra­nos,” “Nurse Jackie”) as de­fense at­tor­ney Les­lie Abram­son in a wig so no­to­ri­ous, it de­serves its own Bravo show.

What if you could crowd­source crime­fight­ing? That's the premise of “Wis­dom of the Crowd” (CBS, Oct. 1). Jeremy Piven (“Mr. Sel­fridge”) stars as a tech gi­ant, griev­ing the loss of his mur­dered daugh­ter, who vows to use all his tools to har­ness so­cial me­dia to cap­ture crim­i­nals. What could go wrong?

CHAN­NEL SURF­ING: Fall leaves may be chang­ing, but nightly network shows are stay­ing some­what the same with spinoffs, re­boots and pre­quels hit­ting the air­waves, in­clud­ing NBC’s ‘Will & Grace,’ above.